Tag Archives: iPhone

Review: Olloclip lens for iPhone

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Designed by a startup duo in California, the Olloclip was a project successfully funded by Kickstarter.com. The accessory brings the functionality of three lenses to your iPhone 4 or 4S, macro, fish-eye, and wide-angle, and it almost does that well enough for you to leave the professional equipment at home! I had a blast shooting with the Olloclip, and I think you will too. Read on in my review of the Olloclip to find out why!

Usability

The Olloclip is very easy to use. You don’t need to install any software, though it’s compatible with any and all iPhone apps. And mounting or swapping lenses just takes a second. I also want to point out that using the wide-angle lens for shooting video was a completely different experience than without the lens. When shooting video, you can definitely see what you’re missing when shooting without the Olloclip. (See video and image samples below)

Appearance

At first glance, the Olloclip only appears to include two lenses, but unscrewing the wide-angle reveals the cleverly hidden macro lens. To use any of the built-in lenses, simply slide the Olloclip over the iPhone’s camera. The Olloclip fits quite snug, so you can rotate the phone, walk around, and even slip your phone into a bag without worrying about the lens slipping off. It’s also easy to reposition — to swap the wide-angle for the fisheye, for example, just flip the entire clip around so that the lens you want to use is facing forward.

The Olloclip comes with lens caps for both primary lenses, and a small carrying pouch that also doubles as a microfiber cleaning cloth. The device is available with either black or red barrels – both constructed from high-quality aluminum. The multi-element lenses are constructed of precision-ground glass, and that’s clearly reflected in the image quality I was able to achieve.

Image Quality
Pictures I shot with all three lenses were sharp and vibrant, and very distinctive from those captured with the iPhone’s native lens. Some pictures had barrel distortions, but for the fish-eye lens, that’s the point right?

I was most impressed with the macro lens, which basically functions as a powerful magnifying glass for your iPhone. I was able to capture incredible detail with this lens. This point alone is enough to justify the expense of adding the Olloclip!

Sample Pictures

Overall

Overall, the Olloclip gives the iPhone’s camera a much-needed lift with three filters and fun effects. I’d especially recommend it for both professional and novice photographers who love adding effects to their photos while keep the quality of their images very high. You can read more about and purchase the Olloclip here.

Review: Ted Baker iPhone Leather Style Pouch

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Are you a trend-setter? What about fashion? Looking for a new, stylish iPhone case? Well look no further – Ted Baker, the famous London designer, has partnered with Proporta to create a new pouch for your iPhone 4 or 4S. The new iPhone pouch is available in two unique colors – Black with an orange Bulldog lining or Brown with a red Spacemen lining. The newly released Ted Baker Pouch is made of the highest quality faux leather, and each is handmade for your pouch. Is new always the best? Can this pouch stand up to other competitors in the iPhone Accessories market? More on this in my review!

Product Quality

The leather in the TB iPhone Pouch is custom-made for your individual case. The leather of the TB Pouch is very soft and subtle, but thick and hard enough to protect your iPhone against scratches or accidental drops. The Ted Baker iPhone Pouch is truly a high-quality case, from the hand-made leather, to the Ted Baker design on the inside of the case, there is no doubt that the effort and keen eye of design is what makes this pouch so beautiful. I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t like about the quality of the product, it was a very high-quality iPhone accessory.

Function

The TB iPhone Pouch uses a unique string pulley system to get the iPhone out of the pouch – to get the iPhone out of the case, you need to pull down on the lace charm and then that pushes the iPhone up out of the case. This works very well for normal, everyday use, but when you want to access your iPhone more quickly, such as answering a phone call, or responding to a text, the pulley system adds another step to using your iPhone.

Overall

The Ted Baker iPhone Leather Pouch is a very stylish, high-end accessory for the iPhone 4 or 4S. The leather, albeit faux, used in the product is second-to-none. The interior design of the case is terrific as well, but, the pulley/lace system used to take your iPhone out of the case is cumbersome and adds another step to getting your iPhone out of the case. I would recommend this pouch to people who love to have great quality, design, and protection in an iPhone case. You can read more about and purchase the Ted Baker iPhone Leather Pouch for $50 on Proporta’s website.

Review: Megaphone by en&is

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The gorgeously designed Megaphone Amplifier for iPhone created by the Italian company en&is is designed to boost the sound coming from your iPhone or iPod Touch without the use of electricity. People all over the world are using speakers with their iDevices to listen to music, watch movies, or using them for conference calls. The ingenious team at en&is have created this very stylish, yet sophisticated, Megaphone Amplifier which supports almost every iPhone (except the 1st generation iPhone) and is also compatible with the iPod touch. The Megaphone is available in three very distinctive colors; white, black, and gold. The white or black Megaphone costs around $500 USD (399.00 €), and the gold will cost around $800 USD (599.00 €). The Megaphone itself is made out of ceramic and was designed to amplify and optimize the sound for the best output without the need for power or electricity. More on this in my review!

Audio

In my review period, I listened to a variety of music – from dubstep to country – to make sure the Megaphone was tested with a full mix of audio sounds. After completing multiple tests, I realized that the amplifier could easily triple the volume of your iPhone or iPod Touch’s speaker. However, the amplifier lacked bass when listening to dance songs, also, when sitting very close to the Megaphone the audio sounds high-pitched and has a very small listening radius… but both of these issues become less noticeable when the distance between you and the device increases. For a sound test, please watch the video below.

Design

The design of the Megaphone is second to none. Every Megaphone is hand-made in Italy, and it truly is a work of art. The Megaphone looks like something Apple would make, with all the sleek, smooth lines and curves. The Megaphone is a great conversation piece to have in your living room or another large area, but for smaller living quarters, the MegaPhone may overwhelm the space coming in at 17l by 12w by 13h.

Overall

The Megaphone by en&is is a very unique amplifier for your iPhone or iPod touch. It’s a beautiful work of art, and if you are an art collector or have a passion for music and design, this is definitely the speaker to get. You can read more about the Megaphone and purchase the amplifier on en&is’ website.

Review: MacBook Air (13 inch model) [Mid-2011]

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The original MacBook Air was more of a style symbol than a computer. Yes it could fit into a manilla envelope, but the $1,799 laptop  trailed behind other ultra-portables in performance, lacking USB ports or a SD slot, and packed a small and slow hard drive. For most people, there were just too many cons over pros for the high asking price.

Then came the major revision,  the second Air was priced significantly less at $1,299 ($999 for the 11-inch version) and included very fast solid state drives, and added one more USB port and a SD card slot. If you didn’t need an optical drive, it had almost about everything it needed to be both a ultraportable business as well as a primary computer, but the older processors still didn’t offer quite enough performance to do the job for some people. Also, in an oversight, the keyboard wasn’t a backlit one.

Which will now bring us to Apple’s 2011 version of the 13-inch MacBook Air. The new Air now has a with a snappy dual-core Core i5 processor (with an i7 option too), a back-lit keyboard, and a new Thunderbolt port, as well as booting Apple’s brand new Mac OS X (10.7). It may look the same as the last Air, but the additions change a lot more than you’d think so. Read on after the break for my full review.

Hardware & Design

The new 13-inch MacBook Air doesn’t look any different than its predecessor – but I don’t think anyone is going to complain about that! When closed, the Air is thicker at the back of the device and tapers like a tear drop, measuring 0.11 inches at the thinnest point and 0.68 at the thickest.

The Air is still stocked with two USB ports (on opposite edges), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an SD card reader. One big thing that the new Air is still missing is a Ethernet port to connect to the internet while traveling, but Apple offers a USB-to-Ethernet adapter for $29.

Keyboard & Touchpad

Why change something when it’s perfect, right? Well, Apple agrees with that philosophy and kept the chiclet keyboard style, added a backlight and the LaunchPad and Mission Control function keys, which took the place of the Expose and Dashboard shortcuts on the top of the computer. Bottom-line is that the new MacBook Air keyboard has it all!

It’s hard not to go on and on about Apple’s glass touchpad — it simply is the best in the business. The 4.2 x 3.0-inch pad is plenty wide for accommodating all the new multitouch gestures supported in Lion. Not to mention, the sensitivity and responsiveness is just right. Two finger “natural” scrolling, three-finger pinching to bring up LaunchPad, and horizontal swipes to move between desktops, are all effortless and don’t require that extra pressure like most of the Windows 7 laptops.

Display & speakers

There’s no change to the 13.3-inch, 1440 x 900-resolution display. It still has the amazingly wide viewing angles, and though it’s glossy, it doesn’t appear to be as distracting or mirror-y as the MacBook Pro’s display. The speakers and webcam have also been untouched. Sadly, the VGA camera hasn’t gotten the FaceTime HD upgrade, but it served up plenty clear and well-lit images when I put it to the test with some FaceTime calling and PhotoBooth pictures. The Air’s speakers are one of the best laptop speakers in the “Thin Laptop” category. Sure, it’s not going to replace your desktop speakers, but it sounds perfectly pleasant when listening to some music.

Performance

Apple claims that the new Airs pack double the performance of last-years model, and that’s not a stretch. My review unit’s 1.7GHz ultra-low voltage Core i5-2557M processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD showed some impressive benchmark results — even besting a handful of higher spec’d PCs because of its SSD. In actual use, it is twice as fast as the old 13-inch Air. Thanks to the Core i5 muscle and a speedy solid-state drive, apps open almost instantaneously and running multiple applications doesn’t cause any lag. The laptop also boots in a quick 18 seconds.

The entire OS just purrs along and all those worries I once had about using an Air as my primary system have gone away in the past two days of heavy use. There’s no doubt this Air could easily replace my current Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.

Battery life & Software

When I first saw the benchmarks and felt how much faster the Air was in everyday use, I was worried about the impact on battery life. However, my worries were put to rest. Apple’s 50Wh battery lasts just as long as it did before. I could easily get a day’s usage out of the computer without any need for rushing to go get my charger on an outlet.

The MacBook Airs are the first laptops to be sold with Apple’s new OS X 10.7. I’m not going to get into the software here, but the iOS-influenced operating system seems likes it was built exactly for a system like the Air. As I’ve mentioned above, the new gestures work like a charm and the solid state drives have things speeding along very quickly. I love the new “Natural” Scrolling and the new Mission Control as it gives me a better layout as to what I have open and running on my computer. I’ll also give props to the new Safari, which looks awesome in full screen mode, and the new mail app, which pulls on a lot of the iPad’s UI.

Conclusion

You will be forgiven for thinking that this new MacBook Air isn’t all that it has hyped up to be. It is much more than that! Sure, if you look at it on paper; Apple has only added Lion, a new processor, and a ThunderBolt port. In reality, it’s much more than that: it’s the first Air that’s capable enough to replace not only the old white MacBook but also the MacBook Pro for some mainstream users. The new processors are fast enough for almost any day-to-day task, and the Thunderbolt port allows the system to expand to almost full desktop strength using just a single cable. Oh, and Apple added the backlit keyboard back in.

One thing is clear: you can no longer write off the Air as merely a status symbol or secondary system. This is a grown-up laptop with the kind of horsepower and battery life that will make a lot of users very happy. And yes, it still fits in a manila envelope!